A Harvey Refugee Reports:

When she with cats, papers, a change of clothes
And her old college bag to hold them all
Was one refugee among others in a dump truck
A Houston Airport Authority dump truck

Dieseling through rain and water and fear
With muck and mud sloshing across their feet
A woman next to her then laughed and said,
“Now we’re the people they take pictures of”

But there was no Capa to frame the scenes
Only oh-my-Godders with MePhone screens

A Saint Jude Prayer Card


I thought to pray for a serious need, you see

But

Saint Jude seems a little annoyed with me

“The sun looks down on nothing half so good as…
                two friends talking over a pint of beer...”

                        ― C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"

They may keep their dark Ministry of Fear -
We joy in our bright Ministry of Beer

As Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet did not say with his dying breath:

     No, 'tis not so deep as a Harvey, nor so wide as a
     Rita; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.

In ‘Nam they jammed with jinx and jump and ****
But now against children the d*mned things work

I don’t want to take the pulse of the American people

                                                 Only yours

You had one job. I mean, really, one job
Just one job, and you didn’t do that job
Right? Right? Just that one job. And you didn’t
You didn’t do that one job, just that one job

All you had was that one job, that was all
Just that one job. What’s the matter with you?
One job. Just one job. One job, am I right?
And you couldn’t be bothered to do that one job

And what was that one job you didn’t do?
TO STOP SAYING, “YOU HAD ONE JOB!”
                                                                ­                  STOP IT!

Okay, I’m scared. Seventy-one years old
And scared. What if the teachers don’t like me?
What if those old principals don’t like me?
And what if the children don’t like me, huh?

I’m apprehensive about my first day
The librarian likes me, though. She’s nice
She asked me to be there. I’ll shine my shoes
And wear a clean shirt and tie – still, I’m scared

Oh, yes, there’s tension in the atmosphere
For this library reading volunteer!

Lunch at Denny’s

With a Side Disorder of Screaming Child and Bellowing Mother


Pajama Child, running and screaming: “Bye-bye. Bye-Bye! BYE-BYE! HEY!!! BYE-BYE!!!!”

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “Don’t run, honey. No. Don’t run! I SAID, ‘DON’T RUN!!!”

Pajama Child, standing in her seat and chewing her food over diners’ backs: “Wlb. Glb. Blrt! Uerk! Blye-blye!

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone:: “One…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!”

Pajama Child: “NO! CAN’T MAKE ME! NO, YOU! NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!!!!!”

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “Twoooooooooooooooooooooooooo…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Pajama Child, throwing food: (SHRIEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!”)

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “NO! I MEAN IT THIS TIME! One………!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Pajama Child, running and screaming around the restaurant: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “Twooooooooooooooo…!!!! I mean it this time!!!! Twooooooooooooooooooo…!!!!!!”

Pajama Child: “NO, YOU! CAN’T MAKE ME! BYE-BYE! BYE-BYE-BYE!”

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “Do you need a spanking? I mean it this time!”



I blame the teachers and Donald Trump. I mean it. No, really.  I mean it this time.

He sat on the old board fence, his chair of state
All spiffy in his Sunday-pressed khakis
Though he wasn't much for going to church
And his Other Hat, still a farmer’s hat

With his teeth and his workworn, sunburnt hand
(The other hand somehow mislaid in France)
He played the paper and ‘baccy and tag
Into a censer of sacred sweet smoke

And all us little boys watched him in awe
And hoped for the bag with its little string draw

“...Uncertain Circumstances”

                  In re John Cornford, 1936

One of the many bad things about being
A fervent Communist organizer is
That pretty soon some other Communists
Organize you

Crew Quarters...

        (When I was a-serving of their majesties Brown and Root)

Rows of racks under aquarium lights
And scattered paperbacks: Louis L’Amour
Bravo Company battlefield yarns, (love)-books
About blonde hot rod babes with really big (pretties)

The crew, all older than I, were better books:
Mechanics, enginemen, crane operators
Welders, riggers, radiomen, divers
Draftsmen for the “as built” modifications

The cook was a nervous man from New Jersey
He looked over his shoulder and dropped things

When you sigh, tucked cozily beneath my arm
Are you thinking of a lover in the past
That worthy youth who was the first to sail
With you out into that wider, wilder sea?

How vain of me to wish that I had been
that sailor, how foolish, for here you are -
I think you’re laughing at me, and well you should
Are you as happy to be here as I am?

Growing old was not part of my master plan
The sea and I are both old now, but you –

                                 You are forever young

Is there a man of such steely self-control
Of such virtue, character, fortitude
Strength and pride in his manly role
Confidence and heart and stern attitude

Valor, endurance, resolution, will
Courage, patience, defiance, intellect
Manliness, ruggedness, rock-like, chill
Decision, quality, all cool and collect

That he doesn’t have to go and upchuck
Whenever he hears that “Desiderata” muck?

A child smiles at the moon; the moon smiles back
For they are friends, you see, both peek-a-boo
Behind and through the leaves of their favorite oak
In an ancient world that is forever young

Adults are children who have forgotten how
To see, and who have lost their bearings, their course
Their pirate-maps for sailing to the stars
And their lunar love-letters to be read in dreams

Among the fireflies, on the cooling-dusk field
A child smiles at the moon; the moon smiles back

An American weather boy reports the storm
And all its tracks upon a glowing map
A hurricane by shape and scale and form
Roaring northeast through a low-pressure gap

There is nothing beyond holy New York City
Some unexplored land masses, it may be
Lost in the Atlantic (which is blue and pretty)
Where the hurricane will be harmless, you see

With a flip of his hand, they are dismissed:
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland do not exist

In the back of a county pickup truck
Odd jobs in lifting this and shifting that
And clearing the other – work gloves, chain saws
A rake, some shovels, water in the cooler

He wipes hot sweat with his zebra-stripe shirt:
“Better than the cells, Mr. H, much better
Sun and fresh air; it ain’t so bad, you know
A little hard work never hurt nobody

It was that old devil dope; I couldn’t say no…”

“Enough of that now, boys; we got to go.”

You wake up in the morning and you know
You’ll only be all wrong again today
A prisoner of constant condemnation
And even your silence is suspicious

Your soul dissected for any dissent
Examined with sneering disapproval
And any hope is hissed with decent scorn
Your silence is especially suspicious

But maybe…

Maybe today – maybe it will be different…

You foolish boy; how wrong you always are

Since 1922

When roaches sense the coming winter
Into your palace, house, or flat they enter

Remember this, as each critter encroaches:
If you have a clean house you’ll have clean roaches

But…

They’ll eat your books, your food, your shoes, your clothes
Give them a chance and they’ll bite off your nose!

They’ll eat your cat, your hat, your baby brother -
They are even pleased to eat each other!

Unless you give them a taste of the Harris
Roaches – oh, ick! - might devour all of Paris

So serve them with Harris, and watch them die
With their quivering feet straight up to the sky

It’s up to you…

No queen, no king, no president, no pope
Need ever think about some cockroach dope

But you do



(I have no connection with the fine folks of Harris Famous Roach Tablets; however, my short-lived household roaches do.)

September Twilight

The gasping summer heat withdraws at dusk
The hot winds still themselves, and now defer
To autumn’s promise and an easy truce
Sol slips behind the trees; the empty sky

Takes little note and fades among the stars
The summer grass is tired, but, bravely green,
Hosts cricket games for pouncing cats and dogs
Points cheered by choirs of cicadas and frogs

This is the thinking time.  The book’s at rest
Unread, face down upon a lichened bench
While votive fire glows in its copper bowl
And dryads whisper in the gathering dusk

Ancestors seem to gather round, to mark
The changing seasons on their holy earth
And tho’ their tread no longer makes a sound
Their merry tales more remembered than heard

Their happy presence in the first-star-hour
Reminds us that whatever-was remains
And will remain until the calling of time

We Have No King...

                      …he doth bestride the narrow world
                      Like a Colossus, and we petty men
                      Walk under his huge legs and peep about
                      To find ourselves dishonorable graves

                                 -Julius Caesar I.ii.135-138

Our Caesar telephones, and missiles rain
Kalashnikov now rules our streets and schools
Warrantless searches on the Amtrak train
Cabinetlings squatting on specimen stools

And we are urged to clench our fists and shout
In ordered, servile choreography
To bring his family coup d’etat about
Through well-surveillanced demagoguery

Our master baits the poor Constitution
Groaning while grasping his moral pollution

King Henry V...

                                  Henry V II.i.47ff

For supper Lord Cambridge was given a chop
The very meal Lord Masham was dreading
Northumberland was carved in that very same shop -
What Norman doesn’t enjoy a lovely beheading?

Rarely do they ****** us
Mostly they just ignore us

Okay, yeah, sure, a little domestic strife
A resume written with a big ol’ knife
But if you want to get ahead in life
Even a king should listen to his wife

She gently takes the proffered nibbly bite
Between her toothful jaws, my little ally
This is our bedtime custom every night
That’s why my dog is fat - and so am I!

-headline

What’s important?



Young lovers soaring through a Neverland night
Savouring each other in sweet delight

"The Queen Stands..."

                                               -Psalm 45

The Queen stands at His right hand, arrayed in gold
The Queen is not ornamented in gold
The Queen is not decorated in gold
The Queen is not merely costumed in gold

The Queen is royally arrayed in gold
For She alone is the Theotokos
In Whose honor the sun is given to shine
Through Her, the Passage between worlds

The Light of the world is the Saviour indeed:
The Queen stands at His right hand, arrayed in gold

Cf:
Psalm 45
St. Gregory Palamas, Homily 38

“Ransomware Cripples Cities”

                            -a common headline

Ransomware never crippled an Olivetti
But a broken spring did so once or twice
So I carried the old machine to old Bill
Whose magic always made it fly again

Ransomware never crippled a cardboard file
Nor yet the flyleaf of the book in which
She wrote the kindest sentiment of love
In the sweet optimism of our youth

Ransomware never crippled who we were -
I did that to us when I walked away

A fuzzy structure there beside the road -
It proves to be the rib cage of the dead
Which nights before enclosed the heart and lungs
Of a creature on its errands dutiful

Gone now to buzzards and bacterial decay
On this, neither the Road to Damascus
Nor to Emmaus, and the Good Samaritan
Could have done nothing had he come along

It sinks into the dust, and so will we
Beneath the tire-treads of mortality

Says...

                               -The King of Israel,
                        the Second Coming of God,
              and Member of the Order of the Purple Heart
                                  21 August 2019

No
No, no
Oh, no
Now please
Just go

Inbox:
Messages and pictures suddenly appear

Sent:
And others then are made to go away

Spam:
And here - oh, my! - delete (goodbye, my dear!)

Trash:
And is all this how we should pass each day?

...of The People

           “He’s an individual, and they’re always trying.”

                      -The Colonel in Many Happy Returns,
                                  episode 7 of The Prisoner

I do not want to be one of The People
With nose rings and tattoos, tee-shirts, knee pants
Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the radio
Foul fungal feet and toes shoved into flops

I do not want to be one of The People
A howling face in an anonymous mob
With a Kalashnikov and ammo drum
A made-in-China heel-spurred baseball cap  

I do not want to be one of The People
And so…

It appears, not every century, no
But every four years in the season of snow
When presidential candidates are hard-pressed
For votes, and in new lumberjack shirts are dressed

The Brigadoon Diner appears in the mist
Whenever there are babies to be kissed
By politicians flown first-class from the city
In designer boots that have never been s**tty

Pancakes and coffee, and an incessant buzz
In a down-home America that never was

Who can tell the Faw from the Aunty Faw?
CarryBOO herds in ballcaps, tees, and tats
Outlaw-scary-masks and gas-station shades
Parachute-pantsies and designer sneaks

          You write no books, you sing no songs – you shriek
          You do no work, you make no art          – you shriek
          You do no good, you help no one           - you shriek
          You make no thoughtful arguments      – you shriek

And all of you dressed like corpses-in-law:
Who can tell the Faw from the Aunty Faw?

A plastic fabric forest of oak leaves
Some blue, some white, almost abstract in shape
An anonymous professional hand
Through unheard signals draws them open, then closed

My friend will be okay: “just a precaution
Overnight for observation, then home
A little heartbeat irregularity
We’ll get you to a room, something to eat…”

Beyond the fabric forest of oak leaves
Other voices, always soft, always kind
Softer and kinder still: “if you will sign this
End-of-life care, DNR, who can we call…”

A moment alone: “Oh, Momma…Momma…”
Whispered out into Creation

                                                       ­        and heard

German refugee husband: “Liebchen – sweetness – what watch?”

German refugee wife: “Ten watch.”

Husband: “Such watch?”

Carl the Bartender: “You will get along beautifully in America.”

                                      -Casablanca

I­ check the time on my retirement watch
(A Seiko; they did not think much of me)
And consider that there is no time at all
Unless Creation is some sort of clock

Childhood is watchless, timeless, careless, free
But adults must be catalogued and timed:
Bulova, Timex, Rolex, and Longines
And even a railway Regulator

I check the time on my retirement watch -
And hustle off to my chapter two job

Chorus:

“Good morning! Good morning! Good morning! Good
Morning! GOOD MORNING! Good morning! Good mor
Ning! Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!!!!!!!!!”

Narrator:

CRASH! (‘cause someone dropped a good-morning dish)

Narrator continues:

At the Waffle House on the interstate
Where dawn and comforting cholesterol
A plastic menu card and that first cuppa
Promise us adventures on this new day

And strengthen the night-shift cops, a welding crew
A day-shift-nurse or two, and me and you!

So my Lawnmower Repair Guy...

                                   The wind that blows
                                Is all that anyone knows

                                  -Henry David Thoreau

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

And my lawnmower is hidden behind a fence
A chain-link fence, among mowers in rows
The owner lost a gunfight; he was taken hence
And what about the mowers? Nobody knows

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

UPS has left notes; the door is locked
There is no sound of man or machine
No one has answered when customers knocked
Only the guard-dogs (yep, they’re really mean)

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

Sergeant Schultz at the cop-shop - she knows nothink
She’s busy with her personal smartphone
Her eyes are fixed; they do not move or blink
And I am all alone in The Twilight Zone

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

So what really happened? Nobody knows

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

So who can I contact? Nobody knows

And is the man all right? Nobody knows


Only the wind...

We were admiring the summer muscadines
I mentioned that my one experiment
In making wine resulted in only
A series of dramatic explosions

And he spake unto me:

Better that, far better, than to be Condemned
Grapes are for jelly, or you’ll be Condemned
Not for Strong Drink, no, or you’ll be Condemned
If you use grapes for wine you’ll be Condemned

He said on a hellishly hot summer day
Then he returned to baling my Catholic hay

The Church and the Pub:



                                                I.

     ­            No One was Before the Blessed Sacrament
      Between the Hours of 8:00-9:20, 10:20-11:45, & 1:10-1:50

                                 -the parish bulletin

And yet we are always before something:
A pint of beer, a tv football match
A darts game where the plastic feathers fly
Miss Swivelly-Hips in her *****-boots

But still, the small red lamp alone in the dark
Shines on for us, for Miss Swivelly too
Throughout the careless hours when we neglect
Duty for the fellowship of the pub

“No one was before the Blessed Sacrament…”
And yet we are always before something

                                                  II.
­
            “No One was Here for the Weekly Darts Tournament”

                           -the old geezer in the corner

And yet there is much to be said for the pub:
A pint of beer, a tv football match
A darts game where the plastic feathers fly
Miss Swivelly-Hips – but we have mentioned her

That fluorescent beer ad’s a kind of red
The old geezer’s cheeks shine, especially when
Miss Swivelley-Hips flirts him for a beer
There is an honest joy in fellowship

“No one was here for the darts tournament”
(Maybe they were before the Sacrament?)

They Say the Prisoner...

With references to Article 58, Senator McCarthy, and Casablanca

He’s one of them
That is, he was
And now he’s dead

If he’s not safe
Then you’re not safe
It only takes
An accusation

They have a list
It’s on the ‘net
You’re on the list
You’re on the ‘net
They’re at your door

You didn’t do it?
You all say that

They haven’t decided
If you will suffer
A heart attack
Or die while trying

To escape

What Can We Do...?

                         They may break our bodies…
                   but they need not dominate our minds.

                                          -C. S. Lewis

Every book we read to a little child
Every kindness we work for another soul
Every bowl we fill while serving the poor
Every prayer whispered, spoken, or dreamed

Every cup of coffee shared with a pal
Every wheezy old joke about Pat and Mike
(Or, to be fair, about Trevor and Neville)
Every small joy sung to the universe

Is a beginning

The heat of August does not rise; it sinks
Space-planting on the earth like hopes collapsed
Guarding the air against all happiness
With damp and rust and rot and air-thick sighs

The heat of August does not heal; it stinks
Of everything gone wrong at once, of either
Stepping outside to a witch-slap of pain
Or lurking inside with headaches and ennui

The heat of August is an emptied man
On a Sunday afternoon when love has died

“...Poisoned Chalice”

              -Macbeth I.vii.10-12

We commend each other with curses exchanged
Between a cop and a hard place in space
Red MAGA caps against ****** berets
All of these accessories China-made

Our battleground an asphalt parking lot
Our forward first-aid post a coffee shop
Where Communists glare over their nitros cold
And Fascists froth their frappuccinos hot

We commend each other with a chalice defiled
Over the broken body of a Child

You can’t be serious all of the time
Because there are bellowing tyrants around
Who bully and demand, who preach and screech
Whose arguments are threats and censorship

Recusancy is their worst enemy
A casual indifference to their demands
A refusal to wear their branded livery
And clenching one’s fist around only

A brush
A pen
A wrench
A book
A thought
A hope

If all you do is to react, they win -
You can’t be serious all of the time

Ill-lettered functionaries at PBS
Are pleased to announce that Woodstock defined
A generation. In reality,
Generations are not defined at all:

My argument is that women and men
Of conscience, courage, character, and class
Define themselves, and stubbornly refuse
To be counted, conned, or categorized

And only followers would acquiesce

To

Ill-lettered functionaries at PBS

A five-dollar garage-sale record player
A five-cent-piece Scotch-taped onto the arm
A plastic K-Mart special from long ago
A groovy thing for a junior high kid

But he was a thirty-something day-laborer
And in the silent cell of his solitude
Wanted to spin some tunes in the darkness
Just like he did when he was a junior high kid

A five-dollar garage-sale record player
Wagner, Sinatra, McKuen - and hope

Bulletproof School Backpacks...

                DeLuxe model with emojis and a charging port

School days, school days
Dear old shooting drill days
Coding and walkouts and smart pad functions
Taught to a federal court’s latest injunctions
You were my queen in tats (Day-Glo®)
I was your Trump at every gun show
You carved in my skin “i luv U ‘n’ Che Guevara so”
When we were a couple of latch-key kids




As of 3 August 2019 bulletproof backpacks were not on the approved list for the Texas Comptroller’s tax-free school supplies weekend; bulletproof vests are on the list as taxable (https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/publications/98-490/clothing-footwear.php).

She was restless in Mass, a three-years’ child
And in her patient father’s loving arms

She wriggled
She squiggled
She giggled

And then she lay ‘way back and looked ‘way up

What went she into the desert to see -
A light fixture? An air-conditioning vent?

Oh, no

Her eyes were large
Her lips were still
Her breaths were soft

- she saw much more

She was happy in Mass, a three-years’ child
And from her father’s arms something she saw…

What?

Who?

She smiled



(And of course she may have been delighted with the vision of an air-conditioning vent after all; a small child’s learning curve is more open to joy than ours)

Grapevines are the first songs of civilization
Their leaves, their tendrils, their late-summer grapes
As given in the Mass: fruit of the vine
And work of human hands, of human love

But when a vine neglects its ancient realm
And reaches out to grasp and colonize
Its peaceful neighbors, privet and rose and oak
It must be brought to heel with sweat and steel

And in its healing recover its purposes:
Grapevines are the first songs of civilization